Feds Should Cut Deficit, Irk Right by Dumping Gold

The federal government's vast stash of gold could be used to both bring down the deficit and drive its critics crazy, writes Thomas Frank. If the government were to take the advice of its critics and really start acting like a business, it would unload its 261 million ounces of gold, now at a near-record high, putting "Fort Knox on eBay" and having President Obama star in TV ads, Frank writes in the Wall Street Journal.

The sell-off would, of course, send the price of gold plummeting, but that would have the silver lining of wiping out the wealth of all the"tea-party types" and other right-wing cranks who've been hoarding gold in anticipation of democracy's downfall, Frank writes. A gold dump will probably never happen, Frank writes, because it would poleaxe the financial institutions who've been buying so much gold, forcing the government to rescue those "who have wagered so much on the government's collapse." (More gold stories.)